Mindless Cockroach Training

[00:00:10] I was thinking it would be fun if we read together. Like sometimes we could read our separate books in the same room, you know? What? You thought we'd be reading the same book? But I was thinking- You know how painful that would be for you? Like if I was in control of the pages and you were just sitting there waiting 10 years for me to get to the next page? Well, I could read out loud to you. No. It's gonna be painful for us.

[00:00:42] I was thinking that would be fun because we have the chilling horror stories and the Viking folk short stories. Vickler Fogg. The Viking short stories and fairy tales. I think it would be fun to read that to each other. You could do funny voices. You want me to read it to you? Yeah, and I could- Like we could each pick one. Like I could read to you, you could read to me. I think that would be fun.

[00:01:13] I agree. I also think that the intro would be fun. Well, I think that this is a podcast called Mindless Prattle. You didn't get a new nickname since yesterday, huh? What? What do you mean what? You came up with the nickname for the podcast. All right. For folks at home, it's been a week.

[00:01:38] Just so you know, it's been less than 24 hours since she came up with the nickname and then promptly forgot. The Prattlers? Sure. Were you Prattlers? It wasn't a long workshop. Not as long as we needed to be. I used my notebook for that, you know?

[00:02:09] For what? Remembering basic things? What do you mean? For like when we have ideas about stuff for the podcast or for the publishing stuff, then I should write it down because writing it down physically is proven to be more memorable than doing it as like a digital note. It is. It is indeed. Why are you looking at me like that? Because I've definitely told you to do that hundreds of times.

[00:02:38] Hey, why don't you write it down? Nah, I put it in my notes app. Do you want to do something fun? No. Boredom is my life now. Just tell us about random notes in your phone with no context. Notes in my phone? Do all my notes are serious or don't make any sense? No. Like I just have a list of to-do things.

[00:03:04] And then below that is just a list of cool technology or things that I saw that I was like, cool, I'll buy that one day when I have a need for it. Or care enough. Or if it goes on sale or something. Oh, because like sometimes mine are related to the podcast. So for last week's episode, I have a note that just says, which spire brooms? And then underneath that it says, flying on them? Question mark? Question mark? Yeah.

[00:03:29] So I do have a note in my phone that is specifically where I write down ideas of, or not ideas, but like things to talk about on the podcast. The only thing that's in there right now, I'll give you, I'll tell you what I wrote down and you tell me what you think it's about. Okay. Because we haven't talked about it. Okay. It's only three words.

[00:03:57] It says, Ripley cockroach training. That's all it says. What? Go ahead. Tell me what I'm... I can't even begin. It's a guess. The fuck that's about. I had...

[00:04:27] What? So... I had... Explain. Oh, man. So I woke up a couple of nights ago. Yeah. And I walked out and you were doing a squat in the corner. And it's middle of the night. I was like, what are you doing? In a dream. And I was like, what are you doing?

[00:04:55] And you were squatted down in the corner near the door. And you're like, oh, I'm training them for tomorrow. So I walked over. I said, training what? And you had three little cockroaches that you were training. And... So I said, why are you training cockroaches instead of getting rid of them?

[00:05:25] And you said, no, they need training to make it more of a challenge for the cats. So... So I was like, okay. I was like, but why don't we... I was like, for them to taste? And you said, yeah, because mice are a problem. And I... Mice are a problem.

[00:05:53] So I was like, why didn't you train mice instead of cockroaches? And you're like, no, mice are a problem. I'm training cockroaches. Because they're not a problem. Well, I think you were implying that you didn't care if the cockroaches died. But you would care if the mice died. And then I was like, why would you just train something to die? What are you, Dumbledore? And then...

[00:06:22] He really sent those kids to fucking die. And then... And then you were like, no, watch this. And you yelled, scatter. And they all started running. And one of them ran up the back of my leg. And that's when I woke up to you tickling the back of my leg. And I pushed you so hard. I thought you were going to fall out of bed. And you just kind of rolled and laid there. And I was like... Did I wake up? We're good. No. Because I don't remember that at all.

[00:06:54] So that's why there's a note in my phone that just says, Ripley cockroach training. I have one on my... Since I'm on my MacBook, you know, I can read the notes on both my phone and here. I'm glad you finally learned how to read. I think it was really holding us back. Shut the fuck up. Okay. I have a new notes app that I've started. It's just words to remember.

[00:07:19] It's random new words I found that I don't remember hearing about or haven't heard before. Okay. So one was canting. Okay. And then fecund. We're not going to explain these words to you. You own dictionaries. You do, but... How are you going to start a segment of words we don't know and then end it with not telling us the words? These are words none of us know and we continue to not know. Good day.

[00:07:51] It's an insincere or hypocritical speech regarding morals or religion. What is? A canting. A canting? Canting. Oh. It can refer to colloquial language used by a specific culture like thieves or beggars. I'm only familiar with canted, which I've always just used to mean like slightly askew. But I don't see how it's related to this.

[00:08:21] Well... You know what I mean? Canted? Like in shooting, if you have your main sights and then there's some that are like 45 degrees off to the side, it's canted. The sights are canted offset, right? So that's why I thought there was a correlation when you just said the word at the beginning, but now I don't know if there's a word. No, you're right. That is the word.

[00:08:48] But like that's one thing when I took the linguistics class that it's crazy to me how many words have the same roots, but mean completely, totally different things. How do you spell your word? C-A-N-T-I-N-G. There's got to be multiple definitions because when I popped it up, it was like at an angle. And you're like, oh, okay. Okay.

[00:09:15] Like, or in the shortest way, Merriam-Webster also says, effectively pious or righteous. Google just says, do you mean chanting? No, I don't, Google. I actually spelled it right this time, but thank you. And then this one, I've used, I've heard this word before. What is it? I just don't know how to say it properly. Is it fecund or fecund? I don't know.

[00:09:41] Let me see if I can, uh, gee, gee, stop that. What is happening? Fecund. Let me, how do we spell this? It's F-E-C-U-N-T. D? N-D? No. There's a T at the end. No, it's a D. No, I'm pretty sure it's a T. No, it's a D. No. F-E-C-U-N-D.

[00:10:12] It's an adjective that means highly fertile, producing, or capable of producing an abundance of offspring, fruit, or new vegetation. Oh, so like your cockroaches. Cockroaches certainly are. Uh. Reverse to animals, plants, or soil. I often see it, you know, used to describe like a valley or, you know, soil. Um, raptorial is one I heard or read the other day that I liked.

[00:10:42] Maybe. But I feel too many people would look at it if you said this is the fecund valley and they're just like the fecal valley. Yeah. So that's, that was kind of my immediate connection. I thought maybe it was going to mean something like, like a bog or a swamp or something that's like kind of, you know? Yeah. Um, raptorial, I thought was going to refer to being like in raptured by something. Oh. You're closer than I was.

[00:11:10] Because it refers to animals that live by preying on other animals or like physical features. Oh, that makes sense. Because that's what a raptor, like the term raptor itself is, is that root. And then we put like velociraptor or other words around it to make it. Okay. That makes sense. Um, and so far that's it for that list. Because I tend to make notes and then forget they're there. But so far I have three of them.

[00:11:37] Um, a household reminders and task lists that we have not updated in a minute. But I don't think that's going to be. Are you still going through your list? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I've got the list of topics or random thoughts for the podcast. I've got the to-do list. I've got a list of just, uh, uh, gift ideas in case somebody's birthday or holiday or something

[00:12:06] comes up for different people. Uh, I've got a, an old list I've got to get rid of of just things to do on our trip from last May. I have records of all of my... Well, I have like ammo counts and things on here just so I don't have to remember to write it down. Um, I've got notes from you on here. Yeah? Anything good? No. Uh, it's... I don't know. It was just, uh...

[00:12:37] This one just says I love you. Don't forget that. I forgot it was here though. Was it me? Hmm? Was it me? It sounds like something you would like put on my phone. No, you wrote that. I don't use that many emojis. It's crazy. Uh, I've got a list of like 3D prints. I've got some like little blurbs and speeches and things. Hmm.

[00:13:07] I've got the, uh, police information from when my car was stolen. That was a fun time. I don't know. I'm just... I've got a lot of stuff on here. Let's see. What is this one? But yeah. I just have basically... I only basically use three of them. Um, the... The notes for the podcast, my to-do list, and then like gift ideas for people. That's pretty much it.

[00:13:35] Mine are usually random stuff for the podcast and then a lot of random writing ideas. Or, uh, you know, little poems. You got poetry? Let's hear some. No. No, you don't have some or? No, it's just too depressing for me to be sharing like that online. A note from you from January 2025.

[00:14:05] Dictionary.com's 2025 word of the year. Oh, what was it? Oh, it was six, seven. Like the full word or? No, it's the two numbers next to each other, like 67. Uh, and then it's defined as pronounced six, seven and has no definition. Why did we put it in the dictionary if there's no definition? Like we got an origin, but not a... All right.

[00:14:38] My favorite note in my phone I will never, ever, ever, ever get rid of is your mom's banana bread recipe. Yeah. You could write it down if you want or like print it, put it in the book, something. I want to make like a recipe book. Okay. I asked my mom for one for her birthday because she gave Samantha one, I want to say, for something for her birthday. And it's excellent.

[00:15:08] So I want it. I took a picture of a few of the recipes. Yeah. Every time I asked my mom for recipes, everything she does is a guesstimate. Yeah. That's how you cook. It's very unfortunate. Yeah. I'm aware. It's crazy. Did you want to talk about how you almost killed me last night? Yeah, you go ahead. Oh, you're not going to confess? That's cool.

[00:15:36] So there I was enjoying perfectly respectable activities. And Ridley goes, here, this is safe because you trust me. That is not the conversation we had. First of all, disclaimer. Whoa, you said I'm telling it. Fireworks are never safe, ever. I would never claim that they are. Anyway, back to the truth.

[00:16:05] So she hands me this. She's like, don't worry. It's little. It'll be fine. And I was like, oh, good. I'm used to handling small things. So I go set it up. And I light it. And then she just screams, run. And then she's covering her ears. And I'm like, oh, no. I've not prepared for this. I don't even have running shoes on. She's got normal people's shoes. Tennis shoes. Regular tennis shoes. And like I was so unprepared, I had surf shoes on.

[00:16:34] That's how much I was unprepared. They're barely surf shoes. That's because we barely surf. Okay. That's different. Well, you can't define someone based on the hobbies they don't do. Okay. So I'm now sprinting. Shorts falling down, running away from my life because she looks like she's about to be the one that explodes. And I turn around at the last second. And there's an explosion. Wild thing to say.

[00:17:04] And there's an explosion. And it goes up in the air, but not nearly as high as it needs to. And then it just goes poof. And then fire rains down on all of us like we were in a novel. And I was like, what's happening? And then it starts hitting car. And it was in the grass. And I was like, oh, man, we should leave. So we were feeling real confident up to that point, too. Like, you know, we're like, we're being careful.

[00:17:32] We've got water with us because we grew up in a place where it's pretty dry and hot. Like everybody's really careful with fireworks. Well, we were setting off fountains up until then. Yeah. And the fountains were like, oh, yeah, showers of sparks, maybe some little sparklers. There was a couple that like shot up a little bit in the air, you know. And then she's like, let's do one of the mortars. I'm like, okay. Yeah, let's do something a little bigger. I was like, everybody else in the area is doing them. It's been fine. And like they go up pretty high. No big deal. No.

[00:18:02] So it went maybe like 20 feet. It was terrifying. It went probably a third of high as what it was needed to be. And we looked afterward. Apparently, whoever we got them from did not store them in a cool, dry place like it says on every piece of packaging because the bottom like two thirds of the propellant was caked together from moisture from wherever it was being stored at. But so not good. No.

[00:18:32] And I'm like, oh, man. It literally was so scary. Like I was just staring at it, waiting to make sure it would just stop and like the flames would go out. And it was so scary. We both were like, we're done now. Right. Like that's it. Like no more fireworks. Well, because the rest of the mortars I don't have confidence in now that they're going to go high enough to detonate. Well, I mean, we still had a little a few of like the little fountain ones. But after that, it was like, oh, yeah, there were a couple like no, we're done.

[00:19:02] It's good. Oh, no, good to 50th. It was fun. Yeah. Good. Good year anniversary of me. First novel. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. You know, what's the worst and the best thing about writing books is I constantly am coming up with new ideas. Like today I was like, I love dragons. Why haven't I written a book about dragons? Why? Why haven't I written a book?

[00:19:31] You could just put a dragon in one of your books. I need to write a book about dragons. I'm just letting you know now. And maybe this will be news to you or the audience. But it turns out and don't hate me for this, that you are the one that writes the books. So you just put whatever you want in there. Mm hmm. Yeah, but I'm not like going to shoehorn a dragon into my current books. Why not?

[00:20:01] All you got to do is like start a trilogy and then just have a random dragon fly somewhere nearby. And you're just like, whoa, we haven't seen one in a long time. And then maybe by book three, you're ready to put it to use. You know? What's the dragon from the underworld of Skyrim? The Durnavir? You looking at it. One of us has a Skyrim tattoo, not the other. I'd like another one. You what?

[00:20:31] I'd like another one. Another what? Skyrim tattoo. Okay. Is that what you're going with? No. All right. Have you decided on what your next tattoo is going to be? No. You've got like three months to figure it out. Okay. My problem is the kind of tattoos I would like, you don't want me to get because you don't want people looking at you, apparently. I don't need to have extra faces on you. You have a face.

[00:21:00] Yeah, but maybe if I get a fake one on my arm or something, it'll ward off evil spirits who think I have two faces. I mean, they'll talk to you. They'll figure it out. You don't need to display it. But no, I don't know. I feel like I need something. What would you do? You feel like you need something? Go on.

[00:21:31] That represents who I am as an adult, if that makes sense. So what are we doing here? We just like, do you want someone who's like just barely next to crushing darkness? Is that what we're not like in it fully, you know, just like pinky toe in the water? You know what I mean? It'd be good. You get a silhouette of someone with just their foot in the water. You know what I mean?

[00:22:00] And then the water you can't see the bottom of because it's dark and depressing down there. That, I don't want that on my watch. We're just barely in it. We're just tip tapping in there. But we can step out anytime, you know? Or like if we can find one of those really cute shops where they have the like random tattoos, you know? Or it's like... You want a nickel tattoo? Is that what you want? No, it's not like a nickel, but you get a random design. Like you...

[00:22:28] They have like pre-made designs in those little balls like they do for kids. How are you going to go from hitting the arm to hitting the... Stop! You hit the microphone arm, then you hit the cord. But you know, like the little vending machines when you're a kid that your parents give you like a quarter for? You want like a gotcha ball when they're just like, great, sit down, you're getting it. Yes! I'll show you some videos after this, but I've seen some really cute ones where they're just like, they're pre-made tattoos.

[00:22:56] And you can pay like to re-spin or something like that. Well, yeah. You got to pay to re-spin any of those. But I think it's a really fun idea. And I think it would help because I really like tattoos, but I sometimes just don't know what to get. I mean, sometimes. It's all the time. All the time you don't know. Well, I was really pretty set on the Skyrim one. That's why I was thinking another video game one would be fun. Yeah.

[00:23:25] You just have to actually find a video game you like. What? It's true. Tell me another video game you love as much. Fallout? No, you don't. You love their music. I haven't seen you play that in a long time. I definitely haven't seen you play the newest one to completion. Alien Isolation? Nope. You were scared of that one for months. Okay, but it's now like one of my favorite games of all time. Yeah, now that they added like Weenie Hut General mode. Shut the fuck up. I've played it on every mode now. Have you completed it on every mode? Yes.

[00:23:56] And actually, I got an achievement or two achievements for completing the two hardest chapters in the game without dying in the hardest difficulty. Well, yeah. Yeah, you did it 18,000 times on the easy difficulty. Like I was playing and you were like, the code to the door is this. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't want to discover it. That's cool. Like, of course, you can skip through chapters now. Well, actually, no. Actually, you can't do that in Alien Isolation. So I don't know what you're talking about. You have to find the code. You can't just like put it in.

[00:24:25] You're the one that told me the code. I was playing it for my first time. You said, oh, the door code is this. And then it worked. So I don't know if they changed that afterward. But you definitely just gave me a code to be like, yeah, the door code is this. Yeah, no, because it doesn't work like that in Alien Isolation. Okay, well, it worked like that when you told me the code. So I don't know what you want from me. I'm very excited for the second one to come out. Very excited. When does it come out? I don't think there's a release date yet.

[00:24:54] They keep dropping like teaser trailers. And they drop the full trailer. Let's see. It doesn't have an official release date yet. It's available to wishlist. So I would estimate probably 2027 or 2028. Probably mid-2027 would be my guess.

[00:25:23] So this says Alien Isolation, the door codes and codes to get places are all the same on each run. However, you do have to either pick up the item or walk into the location where the code can be found before you're allowed to use it. So you're not right. You can roll your eyes all you want. You just told me that they're all different codes and they're not. I didn't say they're different codes. I said you have to find them.

[00:25:52] No. You said they're not all the same. They are all the same. I didn't say they're not all the same. Yes, you did. It's recorded, girl. Okay. I'll figure it out later. You said they're all the same. They're not all the same. They are all the same. But yeah, maybe something from there like representative of the game. Of what? I don't know. Maybe the planet that they orbit around. You want a circle? I'll get you a circle.

[00:26:23] Or like a little alien curled up. Why not? You got to get a face hugger. I feel like that's worse than just getting the alien. What if you get it so that the mouth is your butt? No. That's like the worst placement and the worst idea. Yeah. And they're like based off of vaginas anyways. You can get two.

[00:26:54] Tails wrapped around each other. Like a little. You know what I mean? Surprise. Wrong side. Surprise again. Like whoa. Oh my God. Those things are fucking scary. There's a map in Dead by Daylight that takes place in the wreckage of the Nostromo from the movies. Oh man. And there's a room that every time you walk by it a face hugger jumps across and like hits the window.

[00:27:23] And the first time I played on that map it's getting the ever living shit out of me. Like oh my God. That's awesome. Oh man. You don't want to get your girl shadow. Why? It was a tattoo. Maybe. I don't know. You're the one always like. I should finish the game. I feel like before I get a tattoo of it. I've never made it to Act 3. I've made it to Act 3 once but I never finished it because I got mad that Astarion dumped me because I didn't go camping in the right place in Act 2.

[00:27:53] My fucking bad. Yeah. You don't fuck me in the woods. We ain't gonna be together in the city. All right. That's just the way vampires work. You know what? Maybe I'll start a new playthrough. That's a long game to play through. Yeah. I've got time. I'm still trying to get through Assassin's Creed before Black Flag comes out. I don't know if I'm gonna do it man. It's a lot. You okay? You look like you're in pain over there. You know that feeling when you're gonna like sneeze?

[00:28:24] But then you don't? Okay. And then like it's stuck? Breathing? No. You're not breathing? That's a problem. But then like it made my right eye water but not my left eye. Okay. That was fun. But I was trying not to like cough and ruin your sentence but I did anyways because I was just like trying not to die. Yeah. The deafening silence with the... Much better. Indeed. Indeed it is. Nah.

[00:28:53] Take us out of here you weirdo. Well. This has been an episode of Mindless Prattle. We hope you like what you heard. I know that we certainly had a time in this conversation. We didn't even kill any whales. That's pretty good. Good. Some media can't get through the entirety without killing whales. Yeah. I aim to not kill whales every day. I'm pretty good. News resolutions going pretty strong. Now if only someone could tell James Cameron about it.

[00:29:21] I saw that there was a 2200 pound elephant seal that was blocking traffic. I think it was in like Tunis or something. I saw that. It is apparently a regular occurrence. Oh yeah. I'm sure it's like cows in India just blocking the road. No like this specific one. Oh that was specific. Oh I don't know. Yeah like here comes this fucking asshole again and then they have to like hit him out of the road and everybody's like don't do that. You're still using him. And they're like no this is the only thing that works. Like we've been doing this for years.

[00:29:50] Did you see someone offered to buy the cocaine hippos? Yes I did. Did he transport them? Do we know of that? I think it was somebody in Saudi Arabia wanted them. Okay. Something like that. I don't know. Go back to our earlier episode where we talked about the cocaine hippos and just know this is the update and probably the last one. We should really have like an index of all our episodes on like Excel or something so we can go through it and be like yeah check this episode when we talked about this. Oh no. I won't do that.

[00:30:16] That's you know how many topics like if we had one topic per episode I would agree maybe but 178 episodes of what maybe 20 topics per episode. Nah. Nope. Not happening. If I get bored maybe I'll do it. And you can't really check the episode description because that writer's on crack. He don't know what's going on either. The episode descriptions have always been pretty interesting. Yeah. You were supposed to take us out of here. Okay. Well.

[00:30:46] Then you got distracted. I'm Ripley. That's Jordon. It makes sense. We're your hosts and you've been watching or listening to Mindless Prattle. We hope you like what you heard. We come out every Mondays with new episodes, every Tuesdays with videos and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Goodbye. Bye. Bye.